For Law and for Liberty

The proceedings of our 2015 Convivium Irenicum were published in May 2016 as For Law and For Liberty: Essays on the Trans-Atlantic Legacy of Protestant Political Thought. The volume contains a range of fascinating explorations of both the principles and practice of Protestant political thought in the Old World and the New, beginning with explorations of Protestant theories of natural law by E.J. Hutchinson and Stephen Wolfe, then considering the senses in which the new American nation both was and wasn’t Christian, with essays by Glenn Moots, Steven Wedgeworth, and Miles Smith, and concluding with a critique of Kuyperian political thought (which featured prominently in the 2014 Convivium proceedings) by Ruben Alvarado.

Together, the essays in this volume challenge us to recognize the breadth and depth of our heritage of Protestant political wisdom, and the complexity and contingency of civic life to which its principles must be artfully applied, which rules out any attempt to inscribe any particular instance of Christian politics as a model for all time. May they also provoke renewed reflection on how to faithfully apply our Protestant principles to the challenges facing our American polity today.

Volumes are now available for sale at Amazon.com and should be available in a Kindle version within the next month.

Here is the full Table of Contents:

IntroductionW. Bradford Littlejohn and Peter Escalante

vii

1

Divine Law, Naturally: Lex Naturae and the Decalogue in Two Works of Niels HemmingsenDr. E.J. Hutchinson

1

2

Reformed Natural Law Theory and the American Founding: A Critique of Recent ScholarshipStephen Wolfe

21

3

Searching for a Christian AmericaDr. Glenn Moots

61

4

Views from 19th-Century Europe: How the Separation of Church and State was Seen from AbroadRev. Steven Wedgeworth

85

5

“No Bar to Christian Communion”: Slavery and the Rise of Elite Presbyterianism in South Carolina, 1800-1860Dr. Miles Smith

129

6

The Kuyper Option: Kuyper’s Concept of the Church in the Context of Strategic Christian ActionRuben Alvarado

The Davenant Institute

The Davenant Institute is a non-profit organization founded to support the renewal of Christian wisdom for the contemporary church. It seeks to sponsor historical scholarship at the intersection of the church and academy, build networks of friendship and collaboration within the Reformed and evangelical world, and equip the saints with time-tested resources for faithful public witness.